Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Brief Introduction:
Welcome to a Multizone and 1 Plus Armour co-hosted 40k tournament &
fundraiser event, which will be part of the ITC series. We hope to provide a
competitive environment with an emphasis on having fun with our toy soldiers.
Please read our tournament pack carefully. Please enjoy the tournament and we
appreciate any feedback you can provide, positive or negative!

In the interest of full transparency, this event is both a tournament and a
fundraiser event as noted above. 80% of the potential entry fees go straight
back into player pockets in the form of prizes. 20% of proceeds (assuming we
sell out) from entry fees are going into the 1 Plus Armour coffers so that we
can improve the quality of content we create for everyone to enjoy, as well as
to bolster the quality of our tournaments and events moving forward. The prize
pool noted below is coming straight out of our pockets - if we don't get that
much or more from entry fees then 1 Plus Armour doesn't get anything!

Please note that the ringer will not be paying entry into the event, and will be ineligible for prizes.

Entry Fee: $20 by PayPal to <please tweet/DM for details>. Payment at
the door is also fine!

List submission is due by February 13th for a 2 point bonus on your
Sportsmanship score! Details in Player's Pack linked below!

OTTAWA FOOD BANK DONATION DRIVE: If you can bring an item from the Ottawa Food Bank's "Food We Gratefully Accept" list, or a $2 donation, you will get 1 bonus point on Sportsmanship, as well as entry into a raffle for an Imperial Knight! More items, or more $2 donations, get you more raffle tickets! 100% of proceeds raised through this go directly to the Ottawa Food Bank!

Monday, November 16, 2015

Logan here again, this time talking about the Singles event at Da Boyz GT 2015! If you're looking for an account of flawless victory, you may want to check out a different article, however I'd like to think I didn't do completely horribly!

As noted in the last post, this event was using it's own version of Highlander comp (no duplicate troops unless all troops were taken, no multiple Heralds, single GC/SH LoW, no battle brothers, only a single Forgeworld unit, and no formations or detachments made up for formations).

Sam had top of turn, and road forward to about halfway up the board as my Servo Skulls had denied his Scout move. From there, he opened fire with a few bike units and managed to cause both my Pathfinders and Firewarriors to flee off the board like little cowards. In exchange, I erased Zhadsnark's unit, one or two units of bikes, and brought my Stormsurge up in hopes that it could charge and stem the green tide... it didn't work. Turn 2 saw a Waagh, and my Stormsurge surrounded by Boyz and another unit of bikers... Stomp is kind of useless when you're dead before the I1 step :/ My own mistake, but it was them or the broadsides. Bottom of 2 had my Broadsides destroy a unit, and then get nailed in close combat where they held their own, but conveniently (for Sam) I forgot about my Hit & Run, so I just sat there and bit the dust the following turn.

This game ended with max points (33) for my opponent, and 0 for me... Operation submarine was well underway!

Game 2

This game I got matched up against Dan Galligan from The 13th Legion (who were giving out free beer mugs, and had a pizza party! Hell yeah, awesome!) who was running a really cool, and old-school, Nurgle Chaos Space Marines list with heavily converted vehicles that looked amazing!

Unfortunately, as things tend to go, new is better than old. While we had a fun time rolling dice, and Dan was a fantastic sport, there wasn't much in the way Tau death in this game, with me only losing my Tetras to the Spawn, and Dan running out of models toward the end of turn 4.

This game marked the start of operation submarine... 33 points for me!

Game 3

As luck would have it, I was paired with another member of The 13th Legion - Steve "The Gentleman Gamer" Schlegel, with his Ork Stompa, a void shield generator, and a whole bunch of boyz! Unfortunately, it seems I did not get a picture of his army!

Believe it or not, that Stompa is SCARY! 72" S10 AP2 7" blast!? That's a one-way ticket to Frowntown for my Commander if he fails his cover save, LOS, or Invul... Fortunately, dice appeared to be on my side as far as that went.

Steve could have easily decided to sit back and shoot me to death while claiming the objective(s) he needed, however he made the mistake of bringing the Stompa out of the Void Shield Generator's range, which resulted in it taking 12+ hull points of damage over 2 shooting phases, effectively ending the game. Props to Steve for not laming it out, but unfortunately it was a poor tactical decision.

In an interesting twist, in this game I learned that Fortifications, buildings specifically, can hold objectives! They count as units, do not say that they are not scoring, and count as part of your army unless the opponent claims them... We spent some time going over the rulebook, as well as talking to some other folks, and we couldn't find anything to dispute this regardless of how strange it was, so I ended up walking away with 25 out of a possible 33 points.

Game 4

With the first day ending after game 3, we all went out for a steak and beers at the venue restaurant (which is also great, though pricey!), so I went into day 2 ready for some action and with high confidence.

I sit down against my opponent, Craig Bigham, see that he's running 'Nids in Highlander, and say to myself "Jackpot!". Oh boy, was I in for some fun...

This game could have very well gone my way if it weren't for some serious dice fail, and admittedly poor deployment by me. Craig had top of 1, and flew his Hive Tyrant over to take some potshots at my Broadsides, normally this is a bit of a waste given their 2+ save, but it wasn't this time... turn 1 saw 2 Broadsides dead from shooting, and my remaining Commander, Drones, and Broadside flee off the table in terror by rolling boxcars back to back for panic and run distance.

Things really fell apart from there, and long story short I was tabled by turn 4. The only thing worth noting is that my Stormsurge spent some time punching it out (or kicking shins) with the Trygon Prime, and over 5 rounds of combat (or 6-7 stomps) did not roll a single 6. There's a lot of talk about taking two of these guys to "stomp deathstars", but that feels like you're throwing half the points of your army on a gamble of rolling a 6, meanwhile these guys die in a matter of 1-2 turns against even a stiff breeze, let alone a proper close combat deathstar. 2 thumbs down for that approach...

This game saw another 0 for me, booo.... Craig went on to finish 4th overall! But there was an upside...

Game 4

Like any good Warhammer weekend, there needs to be at least one game against someone that is nothing but smiles, laughs, and who will share some (horrendous, American) beer with you... Mr. Max Dubois!

This game had me up against his uncharacteristically soft Chaos Space Marine/Daemons of Chaos army:

Unfortunately this was another game, like the last game of the doubles, where even with insane dice there couldn't really have been a win for Max. He brought a fun list, and got a horrible table to play on (zero LOS blocking, zero ruins), and faced a terrible matchup with lots of Ignores Cover. Turn 1 saw most of his Plague Drones dead, Turn 2 took out the rest of them and the Lord, and Turn 3 finished off the Daemon Prince.

Max played the objectives where possible, and did manage to snag some points in that game. I walked away with 30, to his 5.

Closing Thoughts

I had a really good time at this event. The venue, staff, players, rooms, food, etc... was all just wonderful. Also, it was awesome to meet some of the "big names" of 40k like Greg Sparks, Nick Nanavati, and Tony Kopac (and I'm sure others, there was a lot of drinking...).

Overall, I finished 41st on battle points (48th overall, if I remember correctly), out of 98 players. I'm definitely disappointed with the result, but I learned a huge amount, so I'm hoping to do better at my next event!

Really, the only negative thing I have to say is that the comp was really not conducive to the "casual and/or fun" atmosphere I think they (DaBoyz staff) were hoping for, and I believe, are known for. It was also extremely strange to be an ITC ranked event, that did not use any form of the ITC FAQ or missions in addition to the Highlander format. These are pretty minor things though, and really did not detract from my enjoyment of the event at all.

I'll be back next year for sure, I just hope they don't opt for Highlander again, but go for something a bit more mainstream... like ITC ;)

Monday, November 9, 2015

Logan from 1 Plus Armour reporting in, just returned from the Da Boyz GT in Canandaigua, NY! I attended this event with several friends and clubmates from CanHammer and the Canadian ETC team and we had a great time.

There were two main events that we attended for - 40k doubles, and 40k singles. The doubles event was largely un-comped, other than only allowing a single Forgeworld unit and single Gargantuan/Superheavy Lord of War per team. The singles event was using Da Boyz's own flavour of Highlander comp (duplicate troops allowed if all troops options are taken, no Battle Brothers, only 1 Forgeworld unit, and no formations or detachments composed of formations).

First things first - the Venue.

This was hosted at the Bristol Harbour Resort, which has an absolutely spectacular, both from the rooms, but also from the tournament hall(s).

The rooms were a very short walk from the hall (maybe a minute), and were also wonderful. Tons of space, which is great if you want to cram 5-6 people into one, and completely spotless and well maintained.

Let's talk about the Doubles.

The doubles event was on the Friday, with the singles on the following Saturday/Sunday, and it consisted of 3 2h30 minute rounds. As outlined briefly above, there was little comp for this (notably no comp on D or Invisibility), and past that the main requirement was just that both players must take a CAD.

I was running a Tau CAD with an Inquisitorial Detachment for those wonderful Servo Skulls, and my partner was running an Eldar CAD;

Things went downhill pretty fast for Chris' team, unfortunately, with us having bottom of turn and being able to very effectively counter-deploy. The end of turn 1 saw Chris' team's Hornets destroyed, a unit of Fire Warriors run off the table due to a failed morale test, and things continued from there for the rest of the game. Chris' team ended up with no models remaining on the table at the end of turn 4. We walked away getting max points of 35.

Round 2

Our second round pitted us against Lewis Stolburg from Pennsylvania who was running solo as his teammate had missed his train and was unable to attend the event. Lewis was running a list that, on paper at least, does not seem extremely scary, but translates in an extreme style of attrition in gameplay through a combination of Eldar, Harlequins, and Dark Eldar:

The Harlequins were part of The Heroes' Path formation, so they all had Stealth, Shrouded, and Infiltrate. Talk about target saturation with this much shooting! Because of the mission, our Wraithknight started in Reserves, which wouldn't be a bad thing normally, but the dice gods are a fickle bunch... Turn 1 saw a Riptide brought down to 1 wound, 1 dead Broadside, 2 dead Missile Drones, and the Commander down to 2 wounds! From there, our Wraithknight came on turn 2, fired two D shots into Lewis' Wraithknight and did a whopping 1 wound! We were able to pop the Raider full of Grostesques and the Archon, which was then charged by a Riptide in hopes of finishing the remaining Grotesque and Archon (after further shooting), however this ended up with the Riptide being stuck in combat for 3 rounds. Toward the end of the game, there was a slap fight between the Wraithknights, with both of them killing each other at the same time despite our's having a 3W advantage at the start of combat. Mercifully, this game ended on Turn 5, and we walked away with 16 points out of a possible 35.

Lewis went on to place 6th (in battle points) in the Singles. Definitely a strong player!

Round 3

Our final game was against a double Nid list that I'm still pretty sure was designed to just frustrate anyone who played against it! This team was led by Jason Hager from New York, and consisted of more floating balls than you can shake a stick at...

4x FlyrantDeathleaper3x LictorsLiterally over 9000 Spore Mines, Sporocysts, and whatever the other spore things are... not really, but had to have been close to 40.2x Mawloc

Things unfortunately got off to a bit of a bad start on this game, and I feel a bit bad about it... Jason's partner had explained to us how the Sporocysts work (at least in this formation), and unfortunately gave us the wrong information which led to us flubbing part of our first turn by doing the opposite of what we should have done. They were great sports about it and decided to play it as they had described rather than RAW. Past that, turn 1 saw a Flyrant taken down to 1 wound, and a unit of Firewarriors killed. Turn 2 saw two dead Flyrants and another at 1W remaining, with a lot of ground left for the 'nids to cover to get into combat.

Jason and his partner didn't really want to proceed at this point, and knew they were walking into a bad match to begin with, and decided to call it a night (for booze and board games!) going into Turn 3. Will and I walked away with 35 points.

Jason's partner, I believe, was Brian Horton, who went on to place 15th in battle points in Singles.

Overall Results and Thoughts for Doubles

Will and I took home a healthy 4th place overall in the Doubles. 1st place went to Chris Pelletier's team, 2nd place to Ricky & Riley (Ontario guys), and 3rd place to Nick Nanavati.

The doubles format was a lot of fun, the scenarios were interesting, and overall we had a great time. The only thing that was a bit off with it was that the Best General award (usually given to highest battle points, but not counting sportsmanship/painting), was awarded to the person that had achieved the most kill points over the event and ended up going to the team in 6th place. An odd choice, and it would have been good to know ahead of time, but oh well.